The White Rose of Yorkshire was most likely presented in the fourteenth century by Edmund of Langley, the primary Duke of York. It was received everywhere amid the Wars of the Roses against Lancashire, which dons the red rose. What Does the Flag Depict? After the Battle of Minden on 1 August 1759, the troops of Yorkshire plucked white roses from the Battlefield nearby, as a tribute to their fallen comrades. Since then, Yorkshire day is commended on the first of August. The white rose of Yorkshire is the image for the House of York. From the 14th century, it has additionally become the emblem for Yorkshire. The image of the white rose is said to identify with the Virgin Mary, who was known as the Mystical Rose of Heaven. White is also synonymous with purity and virtue in religious functions. Which Way Up? As indicated by the College of Heralds, the heraldic rose can be depicted with a petal or a sepal at the top. Among the Yorkshire flags, there is a custom of portraying the rose with a petal at the top in the North Riding and the West Riding, but in the East Riding, the sepalis usually depicted on top. Yorkshire Day is celebrated on 1 August to promote the historic English county of Yorkshire. It was celebrated in 1975, by the Yorkshire Ridings Society, initially in Beverley, as "a protest movement against the local government re-organisation of 1974". The date alludes to the Battle of Minden, and also the anniversary of the emancipation of slaves in the British Empire in 1834, for which a Yorkshire MP, William Wilberforce, had campaigned.